


Alone With You By My Side

by amihanmayari



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 02:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14886041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amihanmayari/pseuds/amihanmayari
Summary: "Clarke?" a familiar voice softly calls from the outside. She thinks about earlier that evening, when someone else who was once familiar called her. Her heart clenches in her chest as she wonders if she should even answer him. Besides, he never answered her."Clarke, please," he insists. "I know you're awake. I can hear you worrying."





	Alone With You By My Side

**Author's Note:**

> Title (kind of) from Kodaline.  
> Post 506, so becho is still together.   
> All mistakes are mine.

"Your secret's safe with me," Octavia whispers in a voice that turns Clarke's veins into ice before she walks away without a glance behind her.

Clarke screws her eyes shut, forcing her lungs to take in air, refusing her body's temptation to break. She swallows down her fear before turning to face Madi.

"Well, I guess we're staying after all," she says, shaking her head. "Let's just get some sleep."

"Clarke--," both Madi and Bellamy start, but she holds her hand up.

"Please," she begs. "I am so tired."

Madi nods, chastised.

Clarke gets Madi to bed, but she doesn't sleep herself. How could she? Instead, she puts her body between the tent flap and Madi, rifle just inches from her hands.

"Clarke?" a familiar voice softly calls from the outside. She thinks about earlier that evening, when someone else who was once familiar called her. Her heart clenches in her chest as she wonders if she should even answer him. Besides, he never answered her.

"Clarke, please," he insists. "I know you're awake. I can hear you worrying."

Clarke huffs and lets him in, eyes widening to see that he hasn't bothered to dry off.

"Bellamy, you'll catch a cold," she scolds him as she directs him to sit.

He snorts. "You know, motherhood made you even bossier."

She rolls her eyes, rummaging her pack for a dry shirt. "Madi isn't my daughter."

She roots around for another second before finding what she was looking for. "Aha!" She holds up a worn brown shirt that she's half sure she found in his old quarters in Arkadia, a lifetime ago. Now it's just a favorite sleepdress of hers. She hands it to him, and he's quiet for a second before murmuring a thanks.

She turns away, allowing him some privacy as he changes. She almost doesn't her him when he speaks again. "I know she's not your daughter, but she's your family anyway."

She smiles sadly at him. "We've both got new families now, huh?"

"Clarke," he says. And she hates it. She hates how he says her name like it's a full sentence, expecting her to understand like she used to. She hates herself for not knowing, for not being able to comprehend this man in front of her. She waited six years and seven days for him, and she doesn't know what to do with him now that he's in front of her. Sure, he's back to saving the day again, but Bellamy the hero isn't really who she was waiting for, was he? She was waiting for Bellamy, her best friend, the one who refused to let her carry the weight of the world alone. He's right in front of her but she still feels alone.

She shakes her head. "Did you need something?"

He frowns. "I need you to talk to me. Why were you leaving?"

She sighs. "I lied. Madi doesn't have artificial nightblood. She's a real nightblood. Niylah and Gaia found out so we needed to leave. I can't-- I can't lose her. She's all I have."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks quietly, searching her eyes.

"I couldn't risk telling anyone. As soon as someone figured it out, they were threatening Madi."

He looks like he wants to argue so she beats him to it. "Bellamy, the six people with you, you wouldn't let anything happen to them, would you?"

See, that's the thing. Six years ago she would have said "us" instead of "them." But like he said, six years is a long time.

"No."

"Then you understand why I couldn't tell you. You didn't tell me about Echo leaving."

She doesn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it's still there: an undercurrent of hurt upon the realization that she couldn't fit back in with her the people who used to be her friends. That they all have different priorities now, and theirs didn't include her.

The muscle in his jaw ticks but he doesn't rise to the bait like she expected him to. He just sags against the cushion. She does feel terrible for him. He's been here less three days and he's already been confronted by warmongering criminals, threatened by his tyrannical sister and her cult, and is separated from his girlfriend. Even if the last one oddly stings, she gets it. She understands how tired he must be.

She spots a tattoo on the inside of his arm. It doesn't look azgeda, but she's realized that things aren't quite as she made up in her mind.

"Did Echo do your tattoo?" she asks him, desperate to change the topic.

He glances down at it and nods. "She found some makeshift tools one day. Raven and Harper both wanted to get something pretty. I asked to get this."

Clarke squints to take a closer look at it. "It looks like a writing system."

"It is. It's baybayin."

She cocks her head. She doesn't think she's heard of that one before.

As if guessing her thoughts, he explains. "My father's family was Filipino. This was an ancient writing system. It died long before the bombs went off, but my great grandfather had a tattoo in baybayin so I looked it up."

She nods.

"Clarke, do you know what it says?"

She shakes her head, unable to find her voice. She can guess.

" _Puso at isip_. Heart and head."

She looks into his eyes and finds them bright. "You told me to use both, Clarke."

"I know," she whispers. "I'm so glad you did."

"Are you?" he asks, searching. "I left you behind, Clarke."

"You had no choice, Bellamy."

He's quiet for a long time before he speaks again, gruff. "Get some sleep, princess. I'll be right here."

For a few hours, she lets herself believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive critique welcome! Come hang with me @amihanmayari on tumblr.


End file.
